


simple bliss

by orphan_account



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/F, Fix-It, Fluff, Healing, Holidays, M/M, Mistletoe, No Apocalypse, Office Party, jon and daisy friendship, office holiday party!!!, semi canon thru 160 with the caveat of the whole everyone being alive thing, yes its february yes im jewish yes im posting a mistletoe kiss fic shut up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22528450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He sees this all and falls a little in love with all of them, and he lets himself, and he doesn't hold back.A different door is opened. He does not drown. He takes Martin’s hand and doesn’t really bother fretting about what comes next.orThe apocalypse has been avoided, and a holiday celebration is in order. And Jon's still not one hundred percent clear about what the whole safehouse thing means for him and Martin.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 66
Kudos: 318





	simple bliss

**Author's Note:**

> okay first tma fic! everyone enjoy! also i guess in this fic jon and martin have very much not yet Defined The Relationship so yeah

The door swings open easily, and immediately, Jon is accosted by an already-tipsy Georgie. She’s holding Melanie’s hand, grinning widely, and she throws her arms around Jon’s shoulders as he steps towards the threshold.

He jolts at the sudden contact. “Hello, Georgie.”

“Jon! Welcome, welcome, come on in.” She ushers him in past the doorway, and he’s shocked at what he can see in the interior now that the girlfriends are no longer blocking his line of sight. The place looks completely different than the last time he was here — brighter wallpaper, a few vases of plants sitting around, a neatly organized bookcase, to name a few oddities.

“What have you done to my flat?” he asks.

 _"Your_ flat. Please. Just because you crashed here for a while doesn’t make it your place,” Georgie admonishes. “And we just spruced it up a bit. I really hadn’t changed anything since I was, I dunno, twenty-three? Mel thought it was high time for a do-over.”

“She can’t even see it, though,” Jon says.

If Melanie had eyes, Jon’s sure she would have rolled them. “ _She_ can still _hear_ , though, and _she_ thought it’d be a good project for her and her girlfriend to tackle after dealing with the fallout from the almost-end of the world. Thanks for that, by the way,” she says flatly. “Don’t think I’ve reminded you enough times.”

Jon rubs at the back of his neck. “Right.”

“Don’t mind her,” Georgie says into his ear. “She’s just acting like this because I made her try eggnog for the first time and she didn’t know there were actual eggs in it and now she’s upset that it was so damn gross.” Georgie pulls a face. “Her words, not mine. I love eggnog.”

“I can tell,” Jon says. “Melanie, I quite like your, erm…”

“Blindfold?” she fills in bluntly. “Thanks.” She actually doesn’t sound sarcastic. “Georgie says it goes nicely with my hair.”

“It does,” Jon agrees. “I’ve got my own eye patch now, so we match, a little bit. Mine is plain black, though. I’m sure Georgie’s told you the whole story of how I got it.”

“She hasn’t, actually. But spare me the details for now, or at least until I get drunk enough to care. It’s _Christmastime_ , Jon.” He sees a smile pull at her lips, and he lets the subject drop.

“Oh!” Georgie interjects. “We’ve got a little plate of those… whatdya call them, the potato situations? The latkes. We made some for you.”

Jon feels his heart skip a little bit in his chest at that. He’s always surprised when people care about him. “You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah, we did. We cocked it up well enough by making a sign that says CHRISTMAS PARTY on it, and that’s more my fault than hers, because, you know, I could see what I was doing. But she’s very adept at flipping those things in the oil. I tried my hand. Burned my arm something awful,” she grimaces. “Can’t do it as well without you guiding me. But it was worth it! They’re so delicious.”

“They are indeed,” Jon agrees. “Actually, I’m going to go grab one right now, if you don’t mind.”

Georgie says she doesn’t, takes his coat and his wrapped gift, and rushes off with Melanie to deposit them in the proper place, saying something about getting Sasha from the room as well as chocolate for Jon. 

The place really has changed, and in the best way possible. It looks so much more like a home. It was always supposed to have two people living in it, and those two people were not supposed to be him and Georgie, and that’s more than okay with both of them. They lived and they learned and they had boring beige wallpaper and now the walls are a bright blue that matches the cloth wrapped around Melanie’s head to cover where her eyes once were and everything seems alright.

Jon’s so caught up in his thoughts that it takes him a moment to register that he’s not actually moving forward anymore. He refocuses to see Tim grinning mischievously.

“What now,” Jon says.

“Hello to you, too. Mistletoe,” Tim answers. “Twelve o’clock.”

Jon looks up, and, yes, there’s a sprig of it hanging from the doorframe. Which seems like an awful idea, as everyone’s going to have to pass through the kitchen at one point or another, except maybe that _was_ the idea, and he can just see Georgie and Melanie losing themselves over whatever havoc they might wreak with this one.

And he’s overthinking this, of course, because he doesn’t _have_ to do anything. Nor does anything have to _mean_ anything.

“I’m not Christian twice-over, which means twice the reason for me to not have to participate in this ridiculousness.”

“Pretty sure mistletoe is a pagan thing, actually, so that doesn’t matter. It started with the Druids? Or maybe the Norse, with Frigga, I think. Either way. Not Christian. It cancels out. Like BODMAS.”

“How in the hell do you know all that and yet you… That’s not what BODMAS means, Tim.”

Tim shrugs. “I think I failed eighth-grade math, so, I mean. Doesn’t really matter.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and, unbidden, Jon thinks of the statement of that man who slept with Harriet Lee all those years ago and of Jane Prentiss and of the fact that he and Tim match, that he and Tim have the same set of circular scars marring their bodies and he’s done with that train of thought now because it’s _Christmas_ and he doesn’t celebrate Christmas but he does celebrate the world not falling to absolute shit, so, mistletoe it is.

He offers up his cheek.

“Aw, come on, boss. Don’t be a coward.”

“Tim, I’m humoring you enough as is. I don’t need you bullying me for the rest of my life over an actual mistletoe kiss, pagans be damned.”

“How offensive of you. The pagans are great people.” Tim presses a swift kiss to Jon’s cheek and then one more to the top of Jon’s eye patch, and Jon reflexively reaches up to wipe off the one on his cheek, though he doesn’t think that he particularly wanted to. It was… nice, actually. And the one atop the socket where his eye used to sit feels particularly intimate, like Tim’s continuing to cross the ravine that those eyes dug between them, and Jon’s probably overthinking this, but that’s just who he is. And somehow, either because he’s a good person or because he’s just a fool, Tim has chosen to work towards forgiveness with who Jon is.

He regrets wiping away the kiss.

“Have you ever actually met a pagan?” Jon asks curiously, finally stepping into the kitchen and to the latkes within.

Tim rests against the doorframe. “Nah. I think they’d be fun, though.”

“Of course. The whole sex magic thing,” Jon says.

“Anyone ever told you that you’re very nonjudgmental and great at subtlety? Anyway, they don’t actually do sex magic. Or, not a lot of them do. Some do. Most don’t. Like, the most widely know group, Wiccans, which, by the way, not all pagans are Wiccan, they typically don’t. I read this book about some American witches—it was called Witches in America, or something equally as creative—and there was only one lady in it who did the—what did you call it?—the whole _sex magic thing_.” He puts on a sort of fake Archivist voice and throws up air quotes around the words. “Anyway. How’re your holidays going?”

“You are so confusing,” Jon says. He bites into a latke and sighs. It’s so good. Not yet completely cooled, but not hot enough to scald the top of his mouth. He’s never been happier about once dating Georgie, because making latkes with her was always a highlight of his year. And he’s glad to know that, at the very least, one excellent thing came out of their failed relationship.“My holidays are going well, thank you for asking. I’ve been doing a lot of resting and reading. You know how it is.”

“I do not,” Tim says brightly. “I’ve been out and about! Taking walks, enjoying the weather before it gets too cold. And when I wasn’t out and about, I watched all of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. If only real vampires were like that…” He sighs wistfully, much to Jon’s amusement. Jon’s grown to love these overblown airs that Tim puts on. Surprisingly, it’s easier than being mad at them all the time.

"You’re ridiculous.”

“Thanks. Pass me one of those?”

Jon hands over a latke. He’s disproportionately pleased by how much Tim seems to enjoy it. “It’s my recipe,” he brags.

“Damn. I didn’t know you could cook, boss.”

“Half-decently.”

“That’s a shocker, actually. You should cook me dinner one night,” Tim says, nudging Jon in the side. “Just the two of us.”

“Alright,” Jon agrees distantly, not really noticing if Tim does or doesn’t deflate just a touch at his tone. “Have you seen Martin anywhere? I wanted to catch up with him. I haven’t seen him since—“

“ _Ahhh_ ,” Tim says, as if Jon’s said anything interesting at all. “Ah, no, I haven’t seen him. I don’t think he’s arrived yet. Daisy and Basira are out there, though, and Sasha might be, too.” He points to the room beyond the kitchen. “Or, well, she’s here somewhere, at least. It’s not a big flat. Just got the bedroom and the toilet and that center sitting room sort of place and a tiny kitchen. Not many places to hide. Actually, I’m going to go check on Mel and Georgie. I think Daisy’s sick to death of me already, so I’m giving her a bit of a break.” He shakes his head, incredulous. “Insane.”

Daisy and Basira _are_ out there (Sasha isn’t, though), seated with Basira on the sofa and Daisy at her feet. Basira’s fingers card slowly through Daisy’s hair, and Daisy’s cheek rests on Basira’s knee. Jon smiles a little to himself. He’s always admired their fierce friendship.

“Happy holidays,” he says upon entrance.

Basira shoots him a commiserating smile. “Happy holidays, indeed.” The sign behind her head dissonantly reads, as Georgie’d apologized for, OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY INNAUGURAL YEAR!!! “Get in alright?”

“I took the Tube down,” Jon says. “It wasn’t too awfully crowded. You?”

“The same,” Daisy says.

“And you?” Jon inclines his head towards Basira. “All good?”

It’s not necessary, of course, to ask if his perfectly capable coworkers—employees?—were alright on the Tube by themselves, but it feels like something he should do. It’s always nice to know that people have got an eye out for your safety.

“…the same,” Basira repeats. “I was with Daisy, so.”

“Oh. You were? Did you get ready together, or something? That’s nice.” He settles down into a chair. It’s so very comfortable, and absolutely nothing at all like the furniture on which he and Georgie used to eat bad takeaway when they were younger. That’s a good thing, though, he reminds himself. There is such a thing as positive change, and positive change is good. It is so very good.

“Jon,” Daisy says, amusement creeping into her voice. “She lives with me.”

“Ah. Smart. Like how Georgie let me live with her for a bit. That’s kind of you, Daisy.”

“Jon, we’re dating,” Daisy laughs. “Have been for a bit, actually.”

Jon blinks. He feels like he should clean his glasses, though they’re not dirty in the slightest. “Oh. You are? You _are._ ” And suddenly, as Daisy reaches a hand up to lay it atop Basira’s, everything makes a lot more sense to him.

“For an all-knowing fear monster, you sure do have quite a few blind spots,” Basira says.

Before Jon can chastise her for making a joke, _again_ , out of his living nightmare (which could have very well become her reality had the apocalypse not been halted), the doorbell rings. “Martin,” Jon says, standing up hastily and nearly knocking a potted plant—because Georgie has potted fucking plants now—off the coffee table in the process.

“Case in point,” murmurs Basira, though Jon doesn’t really get what she means by that.

“I’ll be right back,” he says to them. “I just have to talk to Martin as soon as possible.”

“I’m sure you do,” Daisy says.

“Enjoy yourself,” Basira adds to his retreating back, more humor in her voice than he’s heard in a while. It’s comforting, the way she mocks him.

That’s a little sad, isn’t it? Oh, well.

He squeezes past Tim and Sasha and Georgie and Melanie in the corridor. “I’ll get the door,” he says to Georgie. “You can go set up for whatever I’m sure you have planned.”

She flashes a brilliant grin and presses a piece of gelt into his hand, as she’d promised she would get him. He discards it on the floor and hopes she doesn’t notice. He’s never been a big fan of milk chocolate. “You know me too well, Jonathan Sims. Right, then,” she says to the rest of them. “Let’s give him his space.”

Tim winks at Jon. Sasha gives him a knowing smile. Melanie tugs the cloth around her eye sockets a little tighter with a whispered _Jesus Christ_. Georgie pats him on the small of his back as she passes.

His friends are so confusing.

Martin’s holding a large red-and-green wrapped box in his arms. “Heya, Geor— Oh. Hello, Jon. Happy Chanukah, is it?”

“Not any longer,” Jon says. “It ended three days ago.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jon says. “You’re the only one who’s said it to me so far. Need a hand with your things?”

“I think I’ll be alright, thanks. Where do I put all this?”

“Ah, I know the way. Let me show you.” Jon guides Martin towards the bedroom. “How’ve you been? Merry Christmas, by the way.”

“Thank you! I’ve been decent. Sleeping loads, you know.”

“Me as well. And you’ve been…” Jon doesn’t know how to phrase this properly. “You’ve been talking to people?”

“Good lord, Jon, I’m not daft enough to cut myself off from everyone again,” Martin says. He shucks off his coat and deposits it with the rest on the bed. His sweater is a light blue-green; Jon just barely holds himself back from stroking Martin’s arm to test if the fabric is as soft as it looks. “You needn’t worry.”

Jon purses his lips. “I do, though. Worry. And need to, at least just a little.”

“Well. Thank you, then.”

Jon’s a little taken aback by this. “Thank me? Caring about you isn’t something for which I should be thanked. It’s just a thing that I do.”

Martin opens his mouth as if to say something, then closes it firmly. He pushes a hand through his hair and blinks a few more times than is strictly necessary. Jon is overcome with the sudden desire to hold him, which knocks him sideways for a moment and then for a moment more, but he shakes his head to clear it, and it’s just Martin. The same Martin he’s always been.

“Did you know Daisy and Basira are, ah, an item?” he blurts, for lack of anything better to say.

Not unkindly, Martin returns, “Did you not?”

Jon sighs. “I didn’t know Melanie and Georgie were together until I showed up to here one day and asked why Melanie’s stuff was in Georgie’s bedroom. I’m not historically very… very talented at figuring out this sort of thing. If you know what I mean.”

“I do certainly know what you mean,” Martin says. There’s a little bit of bite to his words, but Jon chalks it up to exhaustion and mild exasperation at Jon’s complete and utter lack of common sense, and doesn’t dwell much further on the tone. “Shall we?”

“Wait. Before we go back to the masses—“

“The _masses_ , Jon, really, it’s like five other people—“

“I wanted to thank you. I wanted to thank you properly.” He takes Martin by the shoulders and looks him firmly in the eye and does not let himself waver and does not go weak at the knees, not even a little.

“Thank me properly,” Martin repeats breathlessly. “Now, what would you mean by that?”

Jon clears his throat. “Just that I wanted to thank you. So. Thank you. For everything. For pulling me out of that… that statement, because an injured eye is much preferable to not having anything left to see at all. For not letting me end the world. For helping keep Sasha alive, and for helping keep Tim alive, and for drawing me and Daisy back from the Buried. For sending me pictures of nice cows while I was in _another_ long coma. For keeping promises. For all of it. For these past few years. For anything else I might have missed, because, as Basira said, for an all-knowing fear monster, I may have…” He hates to admit it, but admit it he must. “...a few blind spots. And for being my assistant,” he concludes.

“Ah,” Martin says. He doesn’t say anything else.

“Strike that,” Jon amends. “For being my friend.”

“ _Ah_ ,” Martin says again, but it’s a completely different word this time, and it’s the correct word, and everything feels okay. For the first time in years, everything feels perfectly at peace. “Well, not much to it, now, is there? It’s an easy enough job.”

Jon laughs. Jon _laughs_ , really laughs, good and long and hard and Martin smiles at him, all rounded cheeks and a glint of white teeth and a sparkle in his eye as he laughs back—with Jon and not at him—and oh no. Oh no. Jon thinks he’s fallen a little in love with him.

He thinks about what Basira said. Blind spots. He thinks that maybe he fell a little in love with Martin a while ago, and that maybe this is more of a completion of that inevitable crash. Maybe this is big enough that Jon can see it, and he can see it for himself, without some sort of Eldritch being forcing it through the cracks in his mind, because that hurts with the sweet sting of relief, like itching at a bug bite until it bleeds, but this?

This is simple bliss.

And then it hits him that this is a lot more complicated than that for more reasons than he can put into words, but for once, he doesn’t want to consider the possibilities, and he doesn’t want to aim for the smart thing to do, or the right thing to do, or the most helpful. This isn’t a matter of feed on nightmares to survive; this isn’t a matter of saving the world; this isn’t anything nearly as clear-cut as all of that. This is love—dammit, this is really love, isn’t it?—and no matter how many times Tim has interrupted a statement with a shouted swear, _love_ is Jon’s least favorite four-letter word.

“Hey, Jon?” Martin ventures, and for one whirlwind of a moment, Jon thinks he’s about to confess his own attractions.

“Yes?”

“You’re holding me a little tight,” Martin says, rolling his shoulders back.

Quickly, Jon pulls his hands back, feeling a pressure at the sides of his head as severe embarrassment sets in. “Right. Yes. My apologies. Yes. Anyway. The… er, the holiday party. Shall we go back? I assume that they’ll be waiting for you.”

“Yeah, they’ll probably be waiting for us,” Martin corrects softly. “So, I actually don’t know all that much about Chanukah.”

Jon’s face lights up. “Oh! Well, let me tell you…”

As they walk, Jon explains lore and tradition and a bit of himself, and he gives it to Martin as easily as if he’d been coerced into giving a damn statement, except he knows that this one ends in daydreams, not in night terrors.

As they enter the room, Martin removes his hand from where it’d been gripping Jon’s wrist, and Tim coughs theatrically. In response, Sasha elbows him in the ribs. Jon says, “Did I miss anything?”, and Tim looks like he might actually cry.

Georgie leans over to whisper something in her girlfriend’s ear. “You missed nothing,” Melanie assures him, and Melanie doesn’t usually like to assure him of anything, so he takes that as a good sign. “Buy my merch.”

She procures a cloth from her back pocket. It’s royal purple and has _GHOST HUNT UK_ emblazoned across the front in bright yellow, perfectly toeing the gentle line between hideous and amazing. 

“I feel like I do owe her some… compensation, but, really, I’m also the indirect reason she’s made “ _merch”_ of that kind in the first place,” Jon admits in a low tone to Martin, who hides his laugh behind a hand.

“ _Not_ funny,” he says to Jon.

“Something you’d like to share with the class?” asks Sasha.

“Yeah, secrets secrets, and all that,” goads Tim.

From Jon, readjusting his glasses: “I do not.”

From Melanie, depositing herself onto Georgie’s lap: “I’m pretty sure you do.”

From Georgie, wincing, but wrapping her arms around Melanie nonetheless: “Babe, that’s my shin. Ah, thank you, much better.”

From Martin: “He made a joke about being the reason you had to…”

From Jon, batting down the stabbing motion Martin is making at his eye with his hands and a spare piece of popcorn string he’d grabbed from the table: “Christ, Martin.”

Basira: “Christ? Don’t you typically not have much to do with that fellow?”

Jon: “He _was_ one of my people, to be fair.”

Melanie: “What people? Massive twats?”

From Daisy, Tim, Sasha, and Georgie: a snort; from Jon: a glare; from Basira: a muffled laugh; from Martin: a consoling hand placed lightly in the middle of Jon’s back and a head titled in Melanie’s direction in a slightly misguided attempt to let her know that he finds her joke funny.

They’re all still getting used to her not being able to roll her eyes at them. She is, too. Jon once overheard her complaining to Basira about it with enough drama that he’d thought a family member had died, or something. Though, to be fair, there likely would have been a touch more sadness to her tone were that the case. He doesn’t know, though. He doesn’t know her family life at all.

He’s realizing more and more that as much as he knows about the world, he actually knows very, very little about his friends.

They are his friends, right?

Melanie, who once said he could show up to Georgie’s place as a friend and never as an ally, who has every reason to hate him beyond belief, who is learning to let go of her anger, bit by bit, in healthy ways, demands, “Well, come on, then, dickhead, sit yourself down with the rest of us plebs,” and, yeah. They’re his friends.

“How did you know I was still standing?”

“If you’d sat, I would have heard you moving about, idiot. Also, I could have guessed. You’re like a vampire with this sort of thing. You don’t sit unless it’s been explicitly stated that you’re allowed to.”

“Not how vampires and entrances work,” Jon reminds her.

“Ugh, please. Let’s all pretend that vampires are _Buffy_ vampires,” says Tim.

From Sasha, face lighting up, and Daisy, spoken into the crook of Basira’s knee: “I _love_ that show.”

From Martin, sitting down just a little too close to Jon and yet not at all close enough: “That’s the one with the girls who were in _Bring it On_ , isn’t it?”

From Tim: various sounds of choking laughter.

From Georgie: “Yeah, I think it is. I watched it once when I was in uni. Haven’t seen it since, though.” She frowns, as if concentrating extra hard will bring her the information needed.

From Jon, unbidden: “Clare Kramer and Eliza Dushku, yes. They played Glory and Faith, respectively.”

From Melanie: “Creepy of you.”

From Basira, beginning a small braid in Daisy’s hair: “Seconded.”

From Jon, a confessional: “This isn’t actually… Eye knowledge. It’s just. Well. I know this because I watched it.”

Instantly, the room pounces on him. Slightly mocking laughter overlaps with defense (ranging from half-hearted to ferocious) overlaps with assorted oratory on female power and toxic masculinity and the consumption of media and so on.

When it dies down, Tim’s still proselytizing about how _Faith and Buffy should have gotten together, dammit,_ and Sasha’s leaned herself onto his shoulder with a look of relaxation etched onto her face.

“It’s a damn good show,” Jon says. His hands fly up in defense, and he scoots away from the women and Tim just a bit, only stopping when he realizes that his back is now pressed against one of Martin’s knees.

“That it is,” Tim agrees fervently.

“I never really got into it,” Basira admits. “I don’t think it’s quite my type of humor.”

Daisy hums her agreement. “Yeah, it’s too overdramatic for you. You’re subtler. More with the sarcasm and the morbidity. Smarter jokes.”

“Ouch,” Tim says. “Calling me stupid? That’s a low blow, copper.”

“Copper? What are you, eighty? Alright, Elias.”

“And,” Basira adds, “we’re not police any longer.”

“ _Elias?_ ” Tim explodes. “That’s a lower blow! That’s a lower blow!”

From Sasha, patting Tim on the cheek a little more heavily than need be, somewhere between a stroke and a slap: “Can you shut up, please.”

From Basira, again: “Seconded.”

From Tim, grinning stupidly: “Hey. What do you call an Elias with no ‘I’s.”

From Martin, tentatively, not moving his knee from where it connects with Jon’s back, not disconnecting their touch: “Elas?”

Tim: “Nope. Just Elias. Get it. You get it. Because he doesn’t have any—“

Melanie, eyeless: “Very funny, Stoker. Absolutely thigh-slappingly hilarious.”

Jon, single-eyed: “It’s. Well. Except for tense usage—it should be _didn’t,_ Tim, really, he’s dead—he isn’t _wrong_.”

Melanie straightens her back and tilts her head up condescendingly. “You don’t get to speak over me on eye-related issues. You have mono-optic privilege.”

Georgie buries her face in the side of Melanie’s neck “Babe, no offense, but I will break up with you,” she mumbles.

Melanie doesn’t lose a drop of her confidence. “No you won’t.”

Georgie, softly: “No. I won’t.”

Tim makes cooing noises, and Sasha claps her hand over his mouth. She shrieks when he licks it, and she wipes it aggressively on his forearm.

“Mind the worm holes,” he says.

“You’ll live,” she says. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Can we not say worm holes,” Martin implores.

“ _Worm holes_ ,” Tim repeats. He jumps to his feet. “Anyway. I’m hungry. You hungry? I’m going to get some food. I’m hungry.”

From Jon, drily, while Tim is still in earshot: “I don’t think that child has ever slowed down a moment in his life.”

From Tim, alongside a two-finger salute: “I’m not a _child_.”

From Basira: a contemplative noise; from Melanie: a sharp laugh; from Martin: “You kind of are, though.”

Sasha gets up, too, stretching from side to side. “I’ll give your eggnog a go, Georgie.”

Georgie’s face brightens dramatically. “Brilliant! You all should try it. Mel here just has very poor taste.”

“You say that, but I’m dating you.”

“Ah, fair,” Georgie amends. “You’ve got pretty great taste at times.”

From Basira, Jon, and Daisy: “I’ll pass on the eggnog.”

Sasha does a quick count. “So that’s just four. Got it.” She heads to the kitchen, but gets caught passing by Tim as they both try to get through the door, his hands laden with trays of cookies and assorted snacks and things that don’t look particularly Christmas-y. But then again, it is technically a _holiday_ party, non-denominational, despite the peppy sign that still reads OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY INAUGURAL YEAR!!!

“Not this,” Jon groans, watching as a slow smile spreads its way across Tim’s face.

“Not what?” asks Martin.

Jon doesn’t turn to face him. For some reason, he feels like he can’t. “Don’t you see? Mistletoe. I got stuck under there before with him.”

In the background, he can hear Georgie laughing, and Basira saying something to Daisy, and Melanie lightly hitting Georgie on the shoulder, but Martin’s slow _hmmm_ cuts over all that with ease.

“He didn’t— I— well, I didn’t want to _kiss_ him,” Jon blusters. “Not because he’s a h—, or, I mean, not because Tim, or— well, you know,” he ends, having no clue what the everloving hell he’s just said. “I just. Well. He’s my subordinate, is he not? It felt inappropriate.”

Martin contemplates this for a moment, and Jon watches as Tim and Sasha negotiate the finer points of the holding power of mistletoe. He can hear Tim start to launch into the same paganism spiel he’d given Jon earlier, likely to Sasha’s repeat of the _I’m not even Christian_ argument. Though in her case, it’s more likely to be playfully contrarian rather than legitimately argumentative.

“Does it really matter?” Martin decides on. “I mean, is he really your employee any more? And, furthermore, would it _really_ have bothered you all that much in the first place? I feel like the Institute destroyed any semblance of, you know, normal boundaries. Not that it would have been _not_ normal to participate in a fun Christmas tradition,” Martin adds quickly.

“I tried telling him that I’m not Christian, and rather aggressively so, ergo the rules did not apply to me. As you can see—“ he gestures to where Sasha, smiling despite herself, continues to hold what looks like a largely fabricated argument over the subject “—that despite that, and despite Sasha’s being, what, about as vaguely Hindu as myself? I think it’s on her father’s side, though, whereas for me it’s my mo— Maybe both, for her? I never lear— I digress. Tim doesn’t really care.”

“How do you know that much about Sasha?” Martin asks. “Not that it’s even a lot, but, I mean, no offense, Jon, you never really made it a… priority to get to know us all intimately.”

Jon can’t be offended by that. It’s true; he learned more about Tim from stalking him due to distrust than from an existing friendship. “I knew Tim a bit before we moved to the Archives, and I’d heard of Sasha before her transfer, so I did a cursory Google of her before hiring. Oh, please, I know what Facebook is,” he says, because even though he’s not looking at Martin, he can feel an eyebrow being raised at his back.

“And me?” Martin murmurs.

Jon doesn’t have time to answer, though, because Daisy is laughing and Georgie is whooping and Basira is saying _really, guys,_ and Melanie is demanding to be told what’s going on and Tim has dipped Sasha, trays of food deposited haphazardly on the floor, into a deep kiss. It’s quite a sight. He’s about a foot taller than her, for one thing, and for another, she’s standing with a foot directly on top of a cookie decorated to look something like an angel, though the face is long distorted beneath her heel. One of Tim’s hands grips Sasha’s waist, and the other is supporting her back, and they both look to be laughing into it, absolutely delighted.

“Ugh,” Jon says distastefully.

“I think they’re sweet,” Martin says.

Tim picks that exact moment to lean just a little too far into the kiss and drop Sasha unceremoniously on the floor.

“Adorable,” Jon monotones.

“Shut up,” Melanie says. “Jon, just _shut up_.”

“You can’t even see it!” he defends.

“Yeah, Jon,” Sasha says. Her hand has landed in the applesauce on the side of the plate of latkes, both of them flat on the ground. “Shut up.”

“You’re missing out, boss,” Tim says, shooting a wink at Jon. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s certainly not making Jon feel like he’s missing out.

“I prefer to not be dropped on the floor, thank you very much.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Georgie laughs. “I would have paid very good money to see that.”

“Me, too,” Melanie says pointedly. “Alas. We can’t all get what we want.”

Georgie quiets her with a kiss, and Melanie, despite herself, melts fully into it.

“Ugh,” Jon repeats. “Oh, don’t even start with me,” he says, cutting off Daisy’s look and Basira’s open mouth. “I’m an equal-opportunity pessimist.”

“Equal-opportunity annoying, more like.” Tim sits himself back down and distributes the food. It’s not like Jon’s very well acquainted with Christian tradition, but he’s pretty sure that latkes and Chips Ahoy! and takeaway curries wouldn’t be found at a typical December 24th dinner. It’s not as if he’s complaining, though, and he happily digs in.

“Did Tim really kiss you?” Sasha asks, passing him exactly two and a half Oreos. “I cannot imagine that in the slightest.”

“I don’t _want_ to imagine that in the slightest,” says Basira.

“He did not,” Jon answers curtly. “Not like… _that._ He was relentlessly obstinate, and ended up giving me a kiss here and here.” He points to his cheek and to the top of his eye patch.

Martin coughs. “Did that not hurt you?”

“Getting kissed on the eye? Certainly not as much as getting it stabbed out did,” Jon says, and then realizes that that might have come across as quite rude, especially to the person who did the stabbing, so he turns and actually faces Martin, and he forgets what he was going to say.

Martin is staring at him with a certain sort of intensity he’s seen in the mirror and in Daisy’s eyes and in very few other places. But Martin’s stare isn’t hungry, tired, desperate. Martin’s stare isn’t delighting in pain, and it isn’t taking from others to feed the self. Martin’s stare is just a plain and simple desire: for his gaze to be met and to be matched.

Jon decides that he’s too afraid to attempt that at the moment. As he’s said: he is not a brave man.

Georgie kisses Melanie where her eyes should be. “That’s cute,” she decides.

"Your eye got stabbed out?” Melanie asks with a morbidly delighted curiosity.

“I keep forgetting you don’t know,” sighs Georgie.

“I don’t, either,” Basira puts in, raising her hand.

From Tim, through a mouthful of latke: “Me, too. Damn, these are good.”

From Sasha, pointedly not getting him a napkin: “Me as well.”

From Daisy, judgmentally, but in a well-meaning way: “Jon, did you really

not tell them?”

Jon sighs. Pushes up his glasses. “It’s been… a lot. And, besides, I’d assumed that you and Georgie would have told everyone else. And,” he explains to the rest, “I told Georgie what happened because I was worried I’d have to crash at hers again, and I told Daisy what happened because, well, I felt I ought to. It was in her house, after all.”

He ended up not crashing at Georgie’s. And he thinks that maybe he told Daisy just because he wanted to tell Daisy, but he doesn’t want to address those feelings, because he’s only just realized today that he might very well love Martin Blackwood, and he doesn’t need to add Daisy Tonner into the equation, too. Even if his love of her is the purely platonic type.

t’s… a lot. He has spent so long pushing away everyone who might try to help him, and now he’s sat at a party with people whom he’s lucky enough to call his friends, and if he lets himself start loving two of them, he knows he’s going to start loving the rest.

He’s terrified that that love might lead to pain. But he’s also terrified that if he doesn’t take that risk, any shrapnel from the fallout will cut him so much deeper than accepting their affection ever could.

“It’s your story to tell,” Daisy says with a shrug. It’s a good answer. It’s the right answer. It means that she’s learning to love beyond the boundaries of Basira, and it means she thinks Jon is worthy enough to be her test subject. Georgie offers an enthusiastic nod of agreement. “Didn’t need anyone to be stepping on your toes after all that.”

“Daisy didn’t even tell me,” Basira affirms.

Jon is suddenly very overcome with a deeper respect for Daisy Tonner than he’d thought possible. She understands. She knows what it feels like to have your body not be your own, to have your will torn asunder by a being you’d rather harm than help. To be, for lack of a better word, a monster. As much as Basira tries, she will never truly understand that about Daisy. As much as Martin tries, he will never truly understand that about Jon.

Sometimes, Jon thinks that Peter Lukas might have had it at least partially right.

But then the scene of the room comes crashing in: of Georgie and Melanie piled on top of each other, Georgie trying to force-feed her girlfriend some eggnog and Melanie laughingly berating her, guard down and knives away and smile more of a blanket than a blade. Of Basira, having finished the braid in Daisy’s hair, rubbing idle circles on her back, not worried about an eye that might or might not have claimed her had the apocalypse come to fruition, and Daisy looking more relaxed than Jon’s ever seen her look, looking like a person instead of a hunter. Of Sasha taking a hesitant sip of her eggnog and then a much more enthusiastic sip, a grin stretching across her pockmarked face, each scar proof of the brilliant fact that she _survived_. Of Tim copying her and choking on the drink and valiantly finishing it off anyway, because, even if he tries to hide it under a layer of bravado, he cares so very much about everyone else’s happiness and wellbeing, and those explosion scars stretching across his left side are proof enough of that, because the ones across his heart are a little less visible.

Of Martin, drinking it all in, thinking the same thing, maybe. Jon doesn’t know. Jon doesn’t Know. Jon isn’t sure he wants either. He’s content, for once, to let himself drift off into a comfortable uncertainty.

He sees all this with his one good eye, and not with the one buried inside his head. He sees this all and he knows more than ever that the sad old sea captain was so very wrong. He sees this all and falls a little in love with all of them, and he lets himself, and he does not hold back.

A different door is opened. He does not drown. He takes Martin’s hand and doesn’t really bother fretting about what comes next.

“You told your _ex_ what happened and not _me_?” Tim says indignantly, snapping Jon sharply out of his thoughts. “It was the end of the world!”

“It’s an unstated office rule that if the apocalypse comes, beep us,” Sasha says, and Jon sighs deeply. He should not have admitted his former obsession with _Buffy_.

“Well, I can recount it all for you now, if you’d like,” he says, more because he knows that if he doesn’t, Melanie or Tim might literally beat it out of him. “With Martin’s help, of course.” Without thinking, he holds up their hands.

To his great surprise, no one really reacts. He supposes that maybe this was an inevitability, and maybe he’s the last to catch on to his own feelings. Tim stares very blatantly at them, but, thankfully, doesn’t say a word. Instead, he meets Jon’s eyes for just a second and gives a smile of approval.

“Right,” Jon starts. “Well. After… actually, Martin, do you want to take this bit?”

“What?” Martin seems a bit distracted. “Oh, hmm, yes, I got trapped in the whole Lonely situation and Jon came to rescue me.”

Assorted noises of appreciation and affection dot the room. Jon takes eggnog from Martin’s hand and takes a big sip. It’s kind of terrible, and Georgie hasn’t covered up the alcohol well enough, but he suddenly feels as if he needs it.

“I’ll go get another, then,” Martin says, but Sasha stops him before he can get up.

“I’m closest to the kitchen. Don’t mind my going, just speak up so I can hear you.”

“All of a sudden I really need something from the kitchen as well. Ah, if only that blasted mistletoe wasn’t above the door frame,” Tim says. “Shucks.”

From Basira, exasperated: “Please try to be a touch less pathetic.”; from Daisy, supplementary: a laugh.

From Sasha, playfully: “If you wanted to take me on a date, you could’ve just asked.”

From Martin, not entirely getting it: “I’m pretty sure those aren’t his intentions, Sasha.”

From Melanie, entirely getting it: “Jesus _Christ_.”

From Georgie: “Well, get on with it, dammit.”

Jon clears his throat. “Right. Uh, well, thank you for the eggnog, Martin. And it wasn’t as big of a deal as you’re all making it out to be. The Lonely thing, not— not the eggnog. We just… we talked. We talked it out, and I took care of Lukas, and we were free.”

“You’re underselling yourself,” Martin complains. “He’s underselling himself. We… yeah, we talked it out,” he glosses over, clearly just as uncomfortable with the idea of sharing the details of their conversation with the rest of the group as Jon is, “and then he absolutely _decimated_ Lukas. Got him to tell his whole pathetic life story and then shredded him to pieces with his voice. It was beyond brilliant.” He looks a little awestruck, which is confusing. Jon was just doing what he was supposed to do, just using the skills that’d been placed inside of him by some unforeseen power for some unforeseen reason and ran with the opportunities given. It was simple practicality; it was survival. It was doing anything to get Martin out of that awful place. It was less of a choice than it was a reflex. His lungs take in air, his heart pumps blood, he protects Martin Blackwood. Easy.

“Yes,” Jon says. “Yes, that is what happened.”

"Pretty cool, boss,” Tim admits.

“I’m not even your boss now,” Jon says. “Am I your boss now?” They still haven’t really figured out the whole employment situation, nor have they figured out the whole Institute situation. It still stands, and it still operates, and they still get paychecks, but they have no clue who currently runs it, and none of them have stepped foot inside of it since the world almost ended. None of them have felt compelled to.

“It’s not like I say _boss_ as a sign of respect,” Tim says. “So does it really matter?”

“Why _do_ you say it?” Sasha asks.

“Because I’ve forgotten his name. Anyways. Jack Scrims, or whoever you are. Storytime, isn’t it?”

"You’re a laugh riot, Tom,” Jon mutters. “So, after Martin and I got out of the Lonely, and after we’d… well, after I’d, ah, disposed of Lukas, we needed a place to crash.”

“And Daisy was kind enough to offer us a safehouse,” Martin jumps in. “So we went there. And it was… you know, there’s no need to dwell on the less interesting parts of this story,” he rushes on. Jon thinks of domesticity he’d never known with Georgie, of a truly great cup of tea, of Martin’s fingers brushing against his own and Martin’s hand on his shoulder and Martin’s presence, Martin’s comfort, Martin’s smile. “And then Jon decided to read some statements, to replenish his energy, you know.”

“Martin was supposed to be taking a walk to go look for some nice cows,” Jon says.

“Are any cows particularly nice-looking?” asks Melanie. “I mean, they’re just cows.”

“For shame,” Georgie says. “ _Just cows_. Would you say the same thing about the Admiral? Is he _just a cat_ to you, Melanie?”

Jon notes the empty glass next to his her. Sasha does, too, and, having accepted her role as de facto waitress, slips into the kitchen to procure more eggnog.

“Cows aside!” Jon pulls the attention back to himself. “Cows aside, Martin was supposed to be out and about. He wasn’t, though.”

Martin runs his free hand, the one that isn’t currently occupied with holding Jon’s, the one that isn’t running its thumb over a myriad of scars given by Jude Perry and Jane Prentiss and the mark of a vicious rope burn courtesy of one Nikola Orsinov, through his own hair. Jon copies the motion with his eyes, and thinks about copying the motion with his fingers. Martin’s hair looks soft. “I was worried about you,” he says to Jon.

"After I’d just gone through the Lonely to get to you? Please. I was worried about _you_ ,” Jon insists.

Someone coughs. Probably Melanie. Sasha nearly spils as she pours out new glasses; she’s brought the whole pitcher in instead of having to worry about taking each glass back individually.

“…so the cows,” Martin reminds him.

“The cows. Martin didn’t go to see the cows. He waited outside, like the sneaky little bastard he is, to make sure I was alright.”

“And thank heavens I did. He starts reading this statement, and it’s _not good_ , like, properly not good, because it’s addressed to him. From Jonah Magnus. By which I mean that Elias wrote Jon a personalized statement before you lot, uh… what did you end up doing to Elias, actually?”

Georgie smiles coyly. “A lady never reveals her secrets.”

“Sharpened melon baller,” Daisy supplies helpfully. “Strength of Basira’s arms. Research into where a stab would kill a person slowest.”

“That sounds fun,” Tim says. “Why wasn’t I invited?”

Daisy shrugs. “It was a girls’ night.”

“Elias wrote me a personal statement,” Jon reiterates, getting them back on track, “that was going to bring about the end of the world.”

Like, for real this time?” asks Tim. “Because the last time a shithead of a clown was trying to do that, I nearly got blown up.”

“Yes, it was quite legitimate this time,” Jon affirms. “I started reading it, and I just— I couldn’t stop. It’s like— I can’t… I can’t describe it. Not with any words that might do it justice. But it felt like there was a hook behind my heart, and it was tugging me forward, and with every word I spoke, the pressure lessened and increased in tandem. I don’t really know,” he ends.

Daisy nods in understanding; everyone else nods in a polite attempt at understanding.

“And Martin heard. And Martin came inside and saw what was happening. He told me to stop, but it’s not as if I really had a choice in the matter. So he—“

“Stabbed your eye out?” Melanie fills in.

Martin winces, grip on Jon’s hand tightening. “I was going to put it into slightly more palatable terms.”

“And popping just the one was enough to do it?” Melanie continues.

“It was enough to get me to stop reading,” Jon says definitively. “And then I burned the statement, and the apocalypse didn’t come, and we got me patched up. And we saw some nice cows.”

It’s very true that they run the risk of everything going to shit by not ridding Jon of both of his eyes. However, it’s a risk that Jon wants to take, and it’s a risk that Martin felt comfortable with. If things start up again, Jon will be the first to take a knife to his eye. For now, though, things seem peaceful. Things seem like they’ll be alright. An eye for an Eye, or so the saying goes, and Jon thinks he’s paid his debt in full. No future collections to come.

Melanie sniffs. “I think you deserved to have both your eyes taken,” she says, “but I’m. Well. I’m very glad that you’re alive.”

Were it not for the fact that Jon thinks the apocalypse might actually come if he were to take her in his arms, Jon might have leaned across the circle and hugged her.

“Well, bravo to Martin,” Tim says. “Our hero.”

There’s a smattering of applause that goes around the room, and Martin looks a bit embarrassed, but it’s a testament to how much he’s grown that he also looks quite comfortable with it. He is not lonely. Not any more. “And to Jon,” he’s quick to add, though.

“And to Jon!”

Martin takes his hand from Jon’s, and Jon feels a little disconnected, until he realizes it’s only so that Martin can push himself up to standing. He takes his glass in his hand and raises it slightly up. “And I want to make a toast, I suppose,” he says.

“You suppose.”

“Mel, do you ever keep your mouth shut?”

Martin kicks at the carpet for a second before continuing. “To saving the world. To saving each other. To, you know, being alive.”

“To us,” Basira says, lifting her own glass of water. “We should have died. We beat the odds.”

“To us!” Georgie echoes. “To telling death to _fuck off_!”

They cheer and raise their glasses and everything is alright.

After that, everything starts to fall into itself in the best possible way. Jon continues to drink the eggnog that he’d been so against at the start of the night. At some point, someone crosses out CHRISTMAS on the banner and replaces it, in a neat scrawl that Jon knows all too well, with the world HOLIDAY. The mysterious vandal adds a small smiley face to the end of the poster, too. It’s quite cute. He sees Basira privately thanking Martin for doing it, and Martin trying to deny that it was him, and it’s all a little hazy, but Jon has not felt this good in years. Jon has not felt this at home in a lifetime.

Tim keeps coincidentally running into people under the mistletoe. So far, he’s made out with Sasha once more (picking her up in the process, as she’s quite short and he’s quite tall, and she somehow got him pressed against the doorframe, and someone suggested that they find a room, and they broke apart, laughing and flushed and so very alive), kissed the back of Daisy’s hand three times, gotten Georgie and Melanie each on the cheek, and pressed the same two soft kisses to Jon’s cheek and eye patch another two times. And Georgie and Melanie have stuck themselves under it a few times, much to Jon’s displeasure. It is, in a word, not very fun to see your ex-girlfriend-turned-good-friend grabbing at your once-enemy-now-frenemy’s ass as they kiss passionately in a doorway you are trying your best to get through.

Honestly, if not for the mistletoe, Jon probably would have still been slightly in disbelief at Daisy and Basira dating. But the way that Basira cups Daisy’s jaw as she leans down to kiss her makes him feel like he’s witnessing something a little too powerful, a little too personal. He supposes he’ll never really understand what they have between themselves; he supposes he doesn’t really have to. As long as he’s happy for them. Which he very much is.

At some point, he starts to lose track of who has kissed who, and it’s not like it really matters, because the only two people actually kissing each other (outside of the girlfriends, whom Jon thinks he can safely assume would be kissing either with or without the mistletoe) are Tim and Sasha, and Jon very much does not have to see that ever again. Ever. And also he’s consumed a little too much alcohol, and he thinks that during his time as a punching bag for evil, his liver suffered a few hits, too, because his tolerance is not what he remembered it being before this whole entities-of-evil situation began.

But his world sharpens to a knife’s point when Martin, coming back from getting a glass of water, passes under the doorframe of the kitchen and is met with a very happy, rather drunk Tim Stoker.

“Merry Christmas,” Tim says. “Mistletoe! May I?”

Martin looks taken aback and flushed in the face. He starts. “Pardon?”

“Kiss you, that is. May I?”

“Oh! Oh, uh, sure thing,” says Martin distractedly. His eyes are searching the room beyond, scanning over Georgie trying and failing to help Melanie spin a dreidel, over Sasha engaged in a heated discussion with Basira about some book or another, over Daisy standing against a wall, soft smile resting in a slowly-becoming-familiar position on her face, with her arms crossed in a way that’s no longer threatening or defensive, but simply Daisy.

Martin’s eyes finally stop roaming, and they land on Jon. Tim presses what must be the world’s softest and most brief kiss ever to Martin’s lips. Jon sort of sees red.

“Merry Christmas,” Tim repeats with a laugh, stepping past Martin and into the kitchen, as if what he just did had no consequence. As if kissing Martin meant nothing.

Jon and Tim are sometimes very different people with very different outlooks on the world, Jon is coming to realize. There is, of course, the upsetting idea that exacting revenge on one murderous clown is worth a failed attempt at martyrdom and a bridge never mended with a former friend; Jon doesn’t think he would have has the guts to sacrifice himself for someone who is already beyond that last desperate hope of saving. There is, of course, a matter of personal boundaries and stalking someone’s home and seeds of discord sowed deeper than Jon or his guardian Eye has the foresight to see. There is, of course, the idea that _I’m sorry_ is perhaps the trickiest phrase in the English language to force out, so maybe the two of them are similar in ways they’d rather not examine but have been forced to nonetheless because they’ve been working towards a proper righting of wrongs, but they still do certainly have their differences. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not in any small part because Jon thinks that kissing Martin might be one of the most monumental instances of his life. Were it to ever happen.

Jon feels his feet moving before the rest of his body is aware of it. Not for the first time in his life, he thinks, _damn, it’d be nice if I thought before I acted, wouldn’t it?_

“Hello,” he says, not stepping under the mistletoe.

“Hello,” Martin returns. “How’s it treating you?”

“How’s what treating me?”

“Oh, you know,” Martin says. He doesn’t follow up on that.

Jon states, very calmly, very much ignoring the way that the thrum of his pulse is drowning out the background noise of the party, very aware of many sets of eyes (plus Melanie’s attention) on his back, “I’m going to step under this doorframe. I just wanted you to know. In case you wished to move out the way, or do anything else of the sort.”

“I do not,” Martin says. “I firmly do not wish to do anything else of the sort.”

“Splendid,” Jon breathes. Somewhere over his shoulder, he hears one of the girls say, “Fucking _splendid?_ ”

Martin kisses him.

Jon’s never really imagined this, because he’s never really realized that he felt this way about Martin before now, because he’s a near-sighted idiot, but he’s sure if he did imagine such a situation, he would have seen it the other way around. He’s sure he would have seen his own hands pulling Martin in by his sweater, maybe, or just by his shoulders, and kissing him.

That’s not what happens, though, and Jon’s glad that’s not what happens, and Jon doesn’t really care about kisses he could have daydreamed about and the rush of memories from the past year or so that seem to have some extremely not-very-heterosexual undertones and he doesn’t care about anything except for the fact that he has a hand in Martin’s hair and he was right. It is so very soft. And that this house and these people and Martin Blackwood all feel like home, and that Jon feels safe for the first time since he signed a contract saying he’d work at The Magnus Institute.

Martin rests his forehead on Jon’s. “Hello,” he repeats, smiling sweetly.

“Hello. _Hello_ , Martin,” says Jon.

Georgie shouts something about Jon finally having his first kiss, and Tim explodes into laughter, and Basira says she can’t tell if Georgie is joking or not, and Jon just wants to sink into this moment forever.

“Everything I said in the Lonely…” Martin starts, but Jon cuts him off with another kiss. This one is softer and shorter and means a lot less and means a lot more and there’s too much to think about so Jon stops trying to classify this, stops trying to place a physical action into an archivist’s box of files, and lets himself live as a person. Not a worker and not a monster and not an unwilling hero of a twisted story, but just a person. It’s hard. He hasn’t done it for a long, long time.

“Everything you said in the Lonely,” Jon says.

“I meant it. I mean it, now. All— all of it.”

“Well, good grief, I hope you don’t mean all the horribly depressing bits about being alone and everything being better now that you’re separated from me,” Jon jokes, and it’s not a very good joke, but it is a very _Jon_ joke, so it works.

“Not funny,” Martin says. He’s smiling, though, and he kisses Jon again, just for a second, just to prove that he can.

“You don’t seem like you mind very much.”

“I do not. I could never mind you.” There’s a certain amount of reverence in his voice that Jon is finally realizing has been there all along, and he feels a bit terrible for how long Martin’s been pining, but the past does not matter one single bit. All that matters is right now, and right now is as close to perfect as Jon thinks can exist in this hellishly messed-up nightmare of a world.

“But Christ if you two aren’t gay,” Georgie says from across the room.

“Can you put a fucking pin in it,” Jon returns calmly.

From Tim, leaning into Sasha’s side: “Swearing! Oh, I love it when the feelings are poked at and the gay archivist gets mean.”

From Melanie, back to Jon and Martin: “Timothy, he doesn’t know that he’s gay yet. You can’t just _tell_ him things like that.”

Tim says, half-jokingly, “I can be subtle. Would you rather I asked him if he… you know…” He does some sort of pressing motion with his hands.

Basira raises an eyebrow. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Sasha nods her agreed confusion, head pressing against Tim’s shoulder, nearly knocking her glasses off against his arm.

“You know,” Tim says. “I’m turning on the tape recorder. Is he… you know....” He does the tape recording motion again and Sasha absolutely loses it.

From Martin, his arm wrapped around Jon’s waist, his lips grazing Jon’s cheek as he speaks: “I think he knows it now. I mean, I did sort of tell him I loved him a few days back. Or that I used to love him. I think I still d— We cuddled in the safehouse, too,” he ends quickly.

Melanie attempts a flat tone, but she’s smiling just a little more than Jon assumes she’d care to be. “How domestic.”

From Daisy, with feeling: “ _Jesus_ . That’s _my_ bed.”

From Jon, to Martin, and only to Martin: “I don’t… we don’t… can we talk more about this at a later date? For now I just want to…” He trails off, not entirely positive where he’s headed. That’s okay. He can be directionless; he can be without all the information. He knows that he loves Martin too and he knows that this is something he will say but he knows it’s something he cannot say right now. He knows that that would be a terrible idea, because he’s kind of drunk and so is Martin and also there are other people in the room and it feels wrong to say it for the first time with other people in the room and this is a lot to take in but he’ll take it bit by bit and keep on living.

“I’m sorry,” he says to Georgie. “I took up two whole years of your life.”

“Honey, I thought you knew the whole time,” she laughs, before pulling Melanie into a kiss.

“That’s depressing,” Daisy says.

“Can it,” Jon says back, and Daisy does, not because there’s any power in his voice commanding her to do so, but simply because she loves him.

Martin tilts his head around and kisses him again, and then again, and then again, and Jon thinks it was all worth it. Every mark on his body and every _statement begins_ and every creepy sentient tape recorder. Every lost and confused year of his life and every wrong turn and every right one. Every choice he’s ever made has led up to this moment. For once, he has no regrets.

“We’re about to start unwrapping presents. We should probably go sit down and get ready and do that,” Martin says to him, though not very convincingly. There isn’t much force behind his voice, which is a blessing, probably. Jon is done with compulsions and higher powers and words.

Jon decides that a kiss says more than a statement, closes his one good eye, and lets himself get lost in the beautiful unknown.

**Author's Note:**

> massive shoutout to mj @2spider2man on twitter for providing the best soundtrack to my writing of this fic everyone stream almonds 4 dinner 4-6am pst on sundays. thanks for reading, kudos/comments always appreciated :-) and please come talk to me about the found family that could have been @ commaperson on twitter !


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